The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for in vivo imaging. More particularly, the present invention pertains to a catheter for imaging within a mammalian body, including luminal systems, such as imaging the vasculature system, including, without limitation, cardiac vasculature, peripheral vasculature and neural vasculature.
For intravascular imaging, it is difficult to achieve and maintain a uniform rotational velocity due to cables and shafts binding and/or whipping around as it is rotated in the blood vessel. Intravascular probes rotate at a nonuniform angular velocity even though the motor rotates at a uniform angular velocity. This is a problem because the angles assumed by the image processor in assembling the image vectors into the cross-sectional image of the body lumens are different from the actual angles at which the image vectors were taken. This causes the cross-sectional image of the blood vessel to be distorted in the azimuthal and radial direction. The resulting distortion is referred as Nonuniform Rotational Distortion (“NURD”). The embodiments disclosed herein attempt to solve these problems, as well as others.